I wanted to put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions. The problem is that no one really asks me anything. Mostly when people ask things, it’s the same question, usually from depressives who want to know how I survived depression. Since the honest answer is “therapy”, it makes for an abrupt and disappointing back and forth.

That just leaves me with questions I either get infrequently or not at all. Mostly the latter. Anyway, here’s my mostly-fraudulent version of a FAQ post.

I recently guest-posted two interviews at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. I thought I would share links to those here, along with every interview/conversation I’ve been part of over the years. The topics all converge around autism, but I’m grateful for the huge variety of insights and perspectives these discussions made possible.

Alexia Klein is a Brazilian translator and author of the blog O autismo em traducao (“autism in translation”). After her son was diagnosed with autism, she decided to use her translating skills to share English-language posts about the spectrum and neurodiversity with readers in her home country (where Portuguese is the official language).

She recently reached out to discuss translating posts from Invisible Strings, so I took the opportunity to learn more about her efforts. We spoke via email about her blog, her translating work and the current state of autism awareness in Brazil.

When I was in elementary school, my social struggles developed into an intense fear of other people.

I sought out friendships, connections, but lacked the basic communication skills necessary to traverse the social world. I didn’t know that I lacked body language; I didn’t know that my mind was unable to catch the nuances of non-verbal communication. Needing people, interested in others, I repeatedly jumped into interactions, only to stumble for reasons I had no way of understanding.